184 chapter
that Mariyamma is praying to fi nd some future relief for her problems, though
that may happen. Her prayers, at this spiritually auspicious and aesthetically
engaging setting on the Arabian Sea, are her relief at present. When asked
what future plans she has to cope with her problems, Mariyamma explained,
“I want to remain here until the end of my life.”
Mariyamma, Mustapha, Sasi and others like them are managing their
problems and pursuing the modest goals of relief, reduction or change through
living periodically, or on a continuing basis, in the aesthetically and spiritually
en gaging environments of religious healing centers. No interviewees developed
such place relations to other healing centers. No one chose to live on the cam-
pus of the allopathic Medical College Hospital or the Government Ayurveda
Mental Hospital periodically as a way of coping with recurring problems.
Indeed, it is not possible to do so at these settings although patients may have
visited healing centers such as these on repeated occasions in undergoing mul-
tiple courses of treatment. Th is analysis is not meant to imply that people who
have resigned to live with an intractable problem would not later be open to
the possibility of radical changes, complete cures or transformative improve-
ments in their lives and problems, but it appears that after years of actively pur-
suing treatments for their problems, some individuals have de-emphasized the
contingency of time in relating to their illness and resolved to seek occasional
relief for a recurring problem at a religious center.
Such dispositions are not unknown in allopathic psychiatry. Despite
eff orts to work toward the ideal of achieving a cure, some problems are con-
sidered essentially incurable or chronic. Th ose diagnosed as schizophrenic,
for example, are often seen as requiring long term, even life-long, pharma-
ceutical management and move in an out of psychiatric institutions over the
course of many years (Estroff 1981)—and it would not be hard to imagine
that Sasi and Mustapha might have received such diagnoses during their
allopathic treatment. It appears that Sasi, Mustapha and Mariyamma have
found a more “pleasant” alternative to a life of institutional management
or repeated, unpleasant attempts at achieving a cure. Th ey and their family
caretakers speak of modest and incremental moments of relief, change and
reduction which they accomplish by essentially living in a pleasant process
of therapy in the spiritually and aesthetically engaging environment of a
mosque, temple or church. While these idioms of incremental relief stop
short of the English language/allopathic ideal of “curing,” other idioms
speak of experiences that transcend the restorative, return to pre-illness state
goals of allopathic care.
Rajan was the young man introduced in Chapter 2 who was formerly
possessed at Chottanikkara temple and was so aff ected by his “healing”